Review: All Hail the King

The King is not pleased at all. 

We’re going to close out the month with the All Hail The King short. Why? One, it’s a short I haven’t seen before. Two, it ties into Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, as I know it covers the actual Mandarin’s response to Trevor Slattery’s impersonation of him for Aldrich Killian. And three, I’m just really tired. Hope no one minds. Kay? Kay. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

The short opens with a quote from King Lear “Come not between the Dragon and his wrath.” Spooky. We’re then introduced to Jackson Norris, a television reporter who is doing his final interview with Trevor, the man who was thought to be the Mandarin. We’re shown some archival footage of Trevor as the Mandarin and then cut over t o his arrest. Norris comments that Trevor seems oblivious to both his work, and to pretty much everything besides his own growing celebrity status. Ohh, Trevor is flying too close to the sun me thinks.

 

Simple poster for a simple story.

Trevor is brought in and we see the other inmates cheer him on as he walks, and that he’s gotten a Captain America Shield Tattoo on the back of his neck. Trevor enters Seagate Prison’s mess hall, where he’s met by his very large fellow inmate and I guess… secretary… Herman. Herman reminds him of the interview at 3 with Norris as they find a place to sit, and lamenting that Trevor didn’t take an exclusive with 60 Minutes, to which Trevor loudly proclaims he’ll never work with CBS again. He runs into another inmate when Herman runs to get him chocolate milk and maybe kale. The other inmate isn’t impressed with Trevor and promises to kill him. Herman and Trevor’s “fanbase” gather, protecting Trevor. He walks up to the other prisoner, Dave, and tells him to kiss Trevor’s rings. Dave tells him he isn’t the Mandarin or even a real criminal, but Trevor is still high on his own legend, claiming he inhabited the role so completely he has become it. One of his fans, Fletcher, asks him to do the voice, which he does after “complaining” a little. He puts on the shades and does the “And you’ll never see me coming” line.

 

Trevor begins his interview with Norris. Trevor is still out of it, doing vocal warm ups while Norris tries to get him to talk about SOMETHING. Trevor’s cell is pretty nice, with Trevor admitting that these are all amenities he earned from rolling on his AIM connections. Trevor claims to miss his Ketamine and the birds, but he’s making due. They finally get down to the interview, Norris mentioning that they’ve covered his recruitment by Killian, the AIM thinktank combining aspects of successful terrorists to make the Mandarin characters and how Trevor “brought him to life” his words, but wants Trevor to answer the question Norris is asked most often, “how could he not know what was going on?” Trevor claims it was the lovely drugs that kept him in the darks.

 

He wants to know more about Trevor, since the AIM guys hid his past really well. Trevor tries to make it sound like he’s keeping things hidden, but then Norris brings out an old photo he found of Trevor from an archive with his mother outside the Royal Court theater. It was when he got his firsts role in the Tempest. He was very close to his mother, apparently, but he wasn’t with her when she died. He was in the US at the time with CBS doing a pilot called Caged Heat where he was an avenging Russian Police Cop with anger issues let loose on Los Angeles. He wishes he had a copy, and Norris reveals he found the original pilot. Looks a lot like any bad 80s tv show. He claims that the show was too sophisticated for the network, and that that was the break that broke him.

A simple interview goes off the rails, hard.

 

Norris points out that Trevor likes to talk about his life like a series of miss opportunities and bad luck but that he never takes responsibilities for his own failures. He claims that he is responsible to his muse, and that he’s “not a bloody rocket surgeon.” Norris points out that Trevor’s “portrayal” of the Mandarin has angered many people and some of them are very dangerous. Trevor thinks he’s talking trolls on the internet, but Norris says it’s actually the Ten Rings terrorist group he should be worried about. He tells Trevor that the Ten Rings is historically associated with the Mandarin, that they were dormant for a while but are becoming more active since Trevor’s arrest. We’re shown images of Raza, the leader of the Ten Rings cell Tony dealt with in Iron Man, images of Mongol leaders, the Ten Rings symbol and so on. Trevor is shocked and impressed that the group is real. Norris asks Trevor what he means by that, since he claimed to have researched this role thoroughly, but that turns out to be code for an actor wasting time to Trevor.

 

Norris takes off his coat, hits a switch on the camera and begins telling Trevor about the Mandarin. That he is a warrior king that has been inspiring men through the Middle Ages or father back in time. Trevor, not picking up the vibe, asks who the hell cares. No one cares about the Mandarin, he claims, people will remember the role he played and that he played it bloody well. We get a close up of the inners of the camera, in inner chamber of which is clearly using some Transformium to convert the inside of it into a gun! Norris admits that Trevor is right, and for that sin, he’ll suffer a hole in his body for every ring of their faith. Norris grabs the gun and shoots most of Trevor’s crew. Herman lasts the longest, but is pinned on the ground by Norris and stabbed with a knife he also smuggled in. Trevor gets the gun, though, and points it at Norris. Norris isn’t impressed and says Trevor won’t kill him. Trevor tries to play it tough, but Norris easily disarms him. He tells Trevor to consider this a lesson in what’s real and what is not, revealing he has a Ten Rings tattoo on his forearm. Trevor begs for his life, but then Norris reveals he’s not here to kill him, he’s there to break him out. He calls in the extraction and we hear gun fire and screams outside. Norris tells him that someone wants to meet him. Trevor doesn’t get it, asks if he knows who he is going to meet. Norris makes it even clearer by saying “no, but you stole his name.” Trevor still doesn’t get it as the credits roll. Oy.

 

Oh, and there’s a mid-credit scene where we’re shown the other big Iron Man villain in prison, Justin Hammer, complaining that Trevor is such a big deal to the other in mates to his own prison butler. “I had a robot army,” he complains, “what’s he got? He’s got some dumb accent.” And as the credits continue to roll, he complains that Pepper Potts is on the cover of Forbes.

 

So that was a fun little short. And to think, this exists mostly because some fans were freaking pissed that they did the Mandarin so dirty in Iron Man 3. Seriously, they word it nicer than that in facts about the production, but they do more or less state this was an apology for making the Mandarin less than what he is in the comics. Ben Kingsley is great as the very spaced out, possibly somehow still high, Trevor Slattery. The bit before Norris, Scooty McNairy, pulled the switch on the interview was particularly well done. He was so high on himself that he couldn’t tell when Norris was going full psycho on him. Love it. And I got to give a shout out to Lester Speight. He didn’t get much to do in this, but I enjoyed the bait and switch moment in the cafeteria and the fact that Herman seems genuinely invested in helping Trevor do well in prison. Oh, and big, big shout out to Sam Rockwell’s bits at the end. Fun fact, he almost didn’t do the short, because Rockwell was busy doing the Poltergeist remake at the time. But, after reading the script he called up the director Drew Pearce and said that if they could shoot his scene in an hour in Toronto, he was in. Pearce did just that and said that Rockwell just came in and nailed it. So yeah, this was a fun short that opened up the possibility for a truer to the source Mandarin that they’re finally acting on in Shang-Chi coming out on September 3. It took them seven years, but, hey, the results look good if the reviews are any indication. But I’ll get back to you on that front in a few days. Have a good night, everybody!

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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

Review: Black Widow

Natasha's back and she's bringing her whole family for the ride. 

Sorry it took me so long to get around to this one. Loki took precedence, and then time just sort of got away from me, and suddenly it’s two months after Black Widow first premiered. My bad. Still, no time like the present to talk about a fun movie. I’ll just say now, if you haven’t seen it already, you should. It’s a fun little story filling in a small gap in the story of the MCU. But enough preamble, let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We open with Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow circa 1995. She’s living with her family in Ohio. We’re first seen her and her younger sister Yelena Belova playing in their backyard before being called in for dinner by their mother Melina Vostokoff. They start having a pretty suburban dinner, when Alexei Shostakov, the family patriarch comes in and excitedly tells Melina that he got IT. The family makes a hasty exit, Natasha going to grab a photo album but Melina makes her leave it. They hurriedly but stealth-fully drive to a nearby airfield. As the girls get on the plane, Alexei shows off inhuman strength getting the plane ready. They take off, but police have arrived by this point. They take several shots at the plane, wounding Melina, but Natasha is able to take over and get the four of them out of there. They land in Cuba, where Alexei turns in a disk over to General Dreykov, their boss and doesn’t seem to notice Melina being carried off in a stretcher. Guards try to grab the two children, with orders to send Yelena to the Red Room for additional training. Natasha steals a gun and threatens everyone trying to touch her little sister. Alexei talks her down long enough to give her a knockout injection.

 

Black Widow had a hell of a week.

We jump to 2016, just after the Captain America: Civil War battle at the Leipzig/Halle Airport. Natasha is on the run from the US Government. US Secretary of State Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross is tracking her personally. They think they have her cornered, but Natasha had actually dropped her tracer in a bathroom and has instead escaped to Norway. Her contact, a fellow that is unnamed in the film but is called Rick Mason, set her up with a trailer and some supplies. Natasha settles in to hide for the foreseeable.

 

Meanwhile, her sister Yelena is still working for the Red Room. She is hunting a renegade Widow named Oksana with other Widows. Yelena kills Oksana, but gets a face full of Red Dust. The substance breaks the mind control that Yelena had been under up to that point. Yelena takes the antidote and sends it to Natasha’s safehouse in Budapest safehouse, where it’s forwarded by Mason to Natasha’s Norwegian safehouse with other mail.

 

Sometime later, Natasha is driving into town for supplies with the Red Dust in her truck when she’s attacked by an assassin in a skull face mask. The assassin, Taskmaster, shows off an impressive array of skills and weaponry as he tries to get the Red Dust from Natasha. Natasha forces Taskmaster back and is able to retreat. She heads out to her safehouse in Budapest, where she finds a recovering Yelena crashing. The two briefly fight before they realize who the other is and why they’re there. The two bond a little as this is the firsts time they’d seen each other in over twenty years. There’s kind of a cute but sad moment when Yelena says that she has kept the lie in her head that her family was still back in Ohio. Natasha, in Yelena’s fictional family, is married with kids. They end up being attacked by Taskmaster and a group of Widows. While escaping, Natasha learns that Dreykov, the leader of the Red Room is still alive and the program is still active. Natasha is in denial about this, as she had assassinated Dreykov in order for her to join SHIELD. She’s clearly haunted by the fact that Dreykov’s young daughter Antonia was also killed in the blast. Natasha and Yelena evade Taskmaster and escape. They get to Mason who supplies them with a helicopter.

 

Just a man on a trip with his girls. Kinda.

Natasha and Yelena fly out to a secret prison where Alexei is being held. They reason that their undercover dad was Dreykov’s #2, so he’ll know where the former Soviet General would be hiding. Alexei has gone through some extensive changes since we last saw him, growing a thick beard and is now covered in tattoos. We join him as he’s getting another on his back and is arm wrestling other inmates while telling them stories of him fighting Captain America. One of the other prisoners points out the timeline doesn’t add up as Alexei has been in prison since the mid-90s and Cap wasn’t taken out of the ice until 2010. Alexei breaks the dude’s arm and then goes to check his mail at the security desk. They’re eating cookies sent to the Red Guardian, but Alexei is allowed to keep the toy that came with it. He finds an earpiece in the toy and is told to get to the yard. He takes vengeance on the two guards for eating his cookies and after an elaborate escaped that ends with the prison being covered in snow by an avalanche reunites with his daughters. Man, that escalated quickly. They ask Alexei what he knows about the Red Room, but he claims to not know anything, but they could go look up Melina, whom survived her gunshot wounds and kept working with Dreykov while Alexei had been in prison. Alexie really wants to kill Dreykov, too, as the sob had him put in that hell hole prison to hide their covert operations together. Alexei is bitter about it, believing he, the Red Guardian, could have been bigger than Captain America. They fly, and are later forced to walk after their copter crashes due to an empty gas tank, to Melina’s farm. On the walk, Alexei asks Natasha if Captain America ever mentioned him, to which she scoffs and walks off.

 

They make it to the farm where Melina has been living. After we have kind of a cute domestic moment where it’s revealed that while they haven’t seen either Alexie or Melina in 20 odd years, they’re both ingrained enough in the younger women’s psyche as “parents” that they react to comments like “sit up straight” without thinking. Melina reveals that her work of the last few decades was on mind control. While they took a few years decoding and doing their own research on the disk that Alexie stole, they perfected a mind control technique that lets her completely control her pigs. She demonstrates by keeping her pig, named Alexie, from breathing. They all argue for a few minutes, where Natasha says something along the lines of “We were always a fake family,” to which Yelena admits that while she knew it was a lie she always WANTED it to be real. A sentiment that both parents reveal to be true of them as well. Alexie by remembering and singing “Bye, Bye Miss America Pie,” Yelena’s favorite song when he last saw her, and Melina by showing she saved the photo album that Natasha had attempted to grab. All the photos were faked, but were still happy.

 

I don't care what other people say, I love the design
of this version of Taskmaster.

Agents working for the Red Room start arriving, Melina revealing that she tipped Dreykov off to their location upon their arrival. They’re all captured and taken to Dreykov’s base, a flying fortress that just gives off the vibe of either a more advanced or alternate prototype to a helicarrier. Natasha and Alexie are put in cells, Yelena is taken to have her brain autopsied to see if they can find a way to counteract the Red Dust cure. Melina is taken to a private interview in Dreykov’s office. After a short conversation, it’s revealed that Melina had spilled the beans to Natasha just before the goons arrived, and the two had swapped places using that facemask mesh from Captain America 2. Natasha tries to kill Dreykov, but it’s revealed as part of Natasha’s Red Room programing can’t hurt Dreykov due to pheromone conditioning. Dreykov actually thanks Natasha for all she’s done, as she helped create the ultimate weapon. He has Taskmaster remover HER helmet and reveals that this version of the character is Antonia Dreykov. She was badly burned in the explosion that supposedly killed the Dreykovs, and suffered some unspecified brain damage. Dreykov implanted a chip in his daughter’s brain and used the technology of the Red Room to turn her into Taskmaster. Natasha tricks Dreykov into showing her his control system for the Widows and then breaking her nose, severing a nerve in her nasal passage to protect her from the pheromones and she attacks Dreykov, stealing his ring and starts downloading the Widow database as he escapes. Natasha’s family escapes their various bonds and they have to work together to disable the flying fortress, stop and cure the widows, kill Dreykov, and defeat Taskmaster. You’ll have to watch the movie to see how things turn out.

Nat is EXHAUSTED.

 

The good first. This was top tier Marvel in terms of casting. Scarlett Johansson kills it once against as The Black Widow, even with several other Widows vying for attention and the top spot. Florence Pugh is great as Yelena Belova. She’s a younger Black Widow, she’s been hurt and while she has her guard up for most of the film, you could see how much better she feels in those few minutes where she seems Alexei cared more about her than he let on back in the day. Speaking of, David Harbour was real fun as Alexei Shostakov. He’s very much a burnt out sportstar or musician, one that never got big but can’t let go of the idea that he’s just one big break from being discovered. The moment where he asks about Cap, when both he and Natasha know that Steve would have Zero idea who the Red Guardian is, was particularly well done with Scar Jo’s exasperation face. He came across as an absolute bastard for how removed he was from his daughters, but that does highlight how near and dear they must have been to his heart for him to remember that song without prompting that he’d only really heard in passing up to that point. He also has a really funny moment where he tries to see if Melina would be down to reenact the most “fun” part of their old assignment together. Horny Red Guardian is hilarious. Rachel Weisz was also amazing as the OG Widow Melina Vostokoff. Much like Harbour, she comes across as a bit of a monster for how detached she is from her kids and yet still able to do the “stop slouching” command that all mothers can pull off. But, again, that kind of highlights how important they were to her when she pulls out the album. Their history was a lie, they were a group of spies, but it’s clear that the elder spies loved the younger like their own children. This movie also passes the Bechdel Test. Most of the conversations are either between women or mix gender, hell I think there was only two dudes only conversations in the whole film.

 

I think the films main weakness is in the villain. Sure, Dreykov is played well by Ray Winstone, but he’s really just an evil exposition machine that only shows up in the third act. We could have used an earlier scene or two as he speaks with his Taskmaster or something earlier in the film. There are also a few hammy scenes that are just kind of cringy. Like this slowmo shot in the finale where Yelena tries to sacrifice herself to kill Dreykov. It just looks awkward.

 

I’ll talk about Taskmaster in a separate paragraph, as I don’t consider her bad but I do have some negative thoughts I want to talk about. On the one hand, I think this was a good reveal. For those who don’t know, in the comics Taskmaster is really Tony Masters. Antonia is a character made specifically for the film. In retrospect, the reveal was kind of obvious with how often they bring up Antonia before it, but I was still shocked with the reveal. The costume is padded enough that I’d have never guessed a woman was in the suit. The skills she showed off were interesting. She used the shield work of Captain America, the Claws of Black Panther, Hawkeye’s Archery, and Spider-Man’s acrobatics. But, I don’t think the powers were explained very well. It looks like her powers work on cybernetics and recordings in her suit, but it’s never explained as such. That and she kind of disappears after the second attack. We could have used another fight with her around when Alexei was broken out of prison or something. We needed more of her is my point. And, to anyone that is complaining that they didn’t get Tony Masters, I say, “Chill.” It’s totally possible to introduce him later, and I think is totally inevitable. Taskmaster is too versatile of a merc villain to not use in at least one of the shows or later movies. Or they’ll flush out Antonia now that her daddy’s mind control is out of the equation. Either way, I don’t think this is the last of Taskmaster.

 

Overall, this is a A- movie for me. There are enough negatives to keep it from a perfect grade, but the acting, action set pieces, and effects make sure it got 90% there. This was a fun story that fills in a minor timeline gap in the MCU for Natasha. It also builds into the next show, Hawkeye, as the post credit scene shows Yelena getting recruited by Countess Valentina Allegra de Fontaine recruiting her to hunt down Hawkeye, the “reason” Natasha died. This actually might be what lead to the legal trouble that Disney is now facing with Scar Jo. If you’ve been living under a rock for the last month, Scar Jo is suing Disney for breach of contract as she was promised that the movie would only be released in theaters and agreed to have her final salary be based on box office sales. Disney needed this to come out to set up Hawkeye, and Covid risks pretty much promised that crowds at theaters would be smaller than they would have been back in 2019. They really screwed Scar Jo, which is dub, because come on, if they’d renegotiated, I seriously doubt Scar Jo would have fought them too hard on allowing a Disney+ premier in exchange for more upfront. Yes, I’m on Scar Jo’s side. She deserves to be paid what she’s worth for her roles, and Disney really screwed their arraignment up by trying to go around her. All I’m saying. So yeah, the movie is fun, and I enjoyed seeing Natasha have the solo run that she deserved back in phase 1 or 2. And to think, this entire story really just explained where Natasha got her vest that she wore in Endgame. Have a good night, everybody!

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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

Hero Profile: Shang-Chi

Hm... should we be singing Kung Fu Fighting or Eye of the Tiger?

So, I was chatting with a coworker the other day and I asked if he was going to see Shang Chi, only to discover that he is but has no idea what Shang’s whole thing is about. And I also realized that I only know the very basic of the basics, that he’s a martial artist modeled off of Bruce Lee and he’s considered to be the best martial artist in the Marvel Universe. I’ve had stupider reasons to do one of these character profiles, so let’s get to it, shall we? Oh, and one more thing. Shang-Chi and his father were both thought of and created in the 60s and 70s. His father’s name in particular comes across as mildly racist by today’s standards, Fu Manchu is the kind of name I’d have advised against had I been able to give input. Because of this, while a lot of material refer to him by that name, I’ll stick with the name he was given after Marvel lost the rights to his original name, Zheng Zu. Will that be a bit confusing as it’s only years after the fact that Fu Manchu is revealed to be Zheng Zu? Yes, but I’d rather be confusing than constantly repeating a name that makes me cringe. Okay, NOW let’s get to it.

 

Is the dragon there, or is it like a 
visual metaphor?

Shang-Chi was born in China’s Honan province, son of Zheng Zu. Zheng was an ancient Chinese Sorcerer and Marvel supervillain, whom wanted a powerful heir and minion for his evil deeds. Shang-Chi’s mother was genetically selected by Zheng to optimize his son’s genetic potential, which had to have sucked for Shang-Chi when he realized he was basically a show dog in his father’s eyes. Shang-Chi began training almost as soon as he could walk by his father and other tutors. Shang-Chi was a prodigy and quickly mastered the techniques he was shown. Shang-Chi grew up in utter ignorance of his father’s villainous nature, believing that his father was a benevolent humanitarian that only had the best interest of the world in mind. See, weapon plus program, this is how you instill loyalty in a minion for over a decade, lying. That’s where you guys screwed up with X-23. Personally, I’d be questioning the humanitarian stance the moment he sent me to London to kill a man, but that’s just me. In London, Shang-Chi was sent to murder a man named Dr. James Petrie. Shang-Chi completed his mission with relative ease, but encountered his father’s arch nemesis Sir Denis Nayland Smith as he tried to flee. Smith informed Shang-Chi of Zheng Zu’s true nature, and I assume this coupled with having just been sent to kill a man caused some tumblers to line up in his head. After, Shang-Chi tracked down his mother in NYC and confronted her about his father. He finally accepted that Zheng Zu is evil after hearing it from her. He fled his father’s Manhattan base, telling Zheng Zu that they’re now enemies and that Shang-Chi will put an end to his evil schemes.

 

Zheng Zu, being an evil mastermind and a jilted father, sent his adopted son M’Nai aka Midnight to hunt down Shang-Chi to kill him for his treachery. Shang-Chi fought off his brother and also stayed out of the grasp of Smith and his assistant Black Jack Tarr. He eventually allied himself with Smith and MI-6 to stop Zheng Zu. He worked with other MI-6 agents Clive Reston and Leiko Wu to stop his father’s plans as well. He would also occasionally cross paths with and battle his half-sister Fah Lo Suee, who also opposed their father, but in a less noble, “I’m taking over when Daddy is dead,” sense. Eventually, Shang-Chi formed a spy agency he called Freelance Restorations in his goal to stop Zheng. He faced off against Zheng Zu for several more years, but eventually witnessed his father’s death. With Zheng Zu gone, a grief ridden Shang-Chi quit his agency, cut ties with his allies and went into seclusion to live as a fisherman in Yang-Tin, China.

 

Shang going full Kaiju.

He eventually came out of his retirement/exile to battle a terrorist group called Argus and eventually learned that Zheng Zu was still alive. He went on to join a new version of Heroes for Hire, joined the Avengers, and actually went on to train other heroes, like Spider-Man and Captain America to improve their hand-to-hand combat skills. He was brought onto the Secret Avengers by Rogers to help battle the villainous Shadow Council, a group that resurrected his father after another death, and used an assassin squad called the Hai-Dai to hunt down Shang-Chi. It’s at this point where Beast revealed that Shang-Chi’s father was Zheng Zu, remember he was still going by Manchu. Shang-Chi is eventually captured and is put into a ritual in order to completely resurrect Zheng Zu who is sort of in an in-between state. The Secret Avengers and Moon Knight arrived to save him. They defeat Zheng again, and Shang-Chi remained on the team’s roster. It’s at this point where Shang-Chi focused on training Spider-Man, and helped Peter develop his own fighting style, the Way of the Spider. He’s gone on to be one of the greatest martial artists of the Marvel universe. And that’s not just boasting, Marvel’s Ares has said that Shang-Chi’s skills are so great the God of War believes that he can beat even gods provided that magic or enhanced abilities are removed.

 

Later, Shang-Chi was one of many people in Manhattan that was infected by a spider virus that temporarily gave him the same powers and abilities as Spider-Man. This infection spread, intensified, and later turned humans into human-spider monsters, turning Manhattan into Spider-Island. Things start getting out of hand as people started transforming into Spider creatures, and others pretended to be Spider-Man. Shang-Chi, who knew Peter’s real identity, and confirmed him to Iron Fist and other heroes. Eventually a creature called the Bride of Nine Spiders started abducting Immortal Weapons, a group that Iron Fist is apart of. Shang-Chi tries to protect Iron Fist but isn’t able to keep his friend from being taken. With help from Silver Sable, he was able to find the locations the Bride of Nine Spider’s is hiding. He’s able to beat the Bride in round 2, but then discovers the real culprit behind Spider Island is Ai Apaec, a chimeric Moche God, with the upper body of a man but lower body of a Spider. Ai Apaec is absorbing energy from the Immortal Weapons. Shang-Chi made sure that the Immortal Weapons escaped, and then collapsed the mansion of Ai Apeac’s mansion, burying him until the other Avengers arrive. They join the other heroes to battle the final-final boss, the Spider Queen.

 

Shang-Chi remains an active part of the Avengers after this point, battling along side the heroes and training the others in combat. He would go on to open his own martial arts school and continue to battle the forces of evil and his often-resurrected father and other villainous family members.

 

Shang-Chi is a master martial artist, often said to be the Greatest fighter in the Marvel Universe. His father Zheng Zi ensured that Shang-Chi was trained almost from the moment he could walk to fight. While his preference is for kung fu and empty-hand fighting, he is also a highly skilled fighter in swords, staff, nunchaku, kali sticks and shuriken. His skills are so great that he’s trained or sparred again some of the Marvel heavy weights like Captain America, Spider-Man and Wolverine. Shang-Chi has a greater control of his nervous system than most humans, allowing him to deaden his sense of pain, resist the effects of drugs or poison and can even slow how fast he bleeds. So he’s kind of like Wolverine, if Logan had to work for his superpowers. Either by birth or by extensive training, Shang-Chi is deeply connected to chi, being able to sense life energy with such precision that he could find Jean Grey even while she was masking her presence. Shang-Chi actually identifies himself as a bodhisattva, a person that is on the path to achieving Buddhahood but has not yet achieved it. He’s also a master of Eastern Philosophy and is multilingual.

 

Dysfunctional family
at it's finest.

Unlike most of the characters I’ve covered on my posts, Shang-Chi has (at the time of writing) not been used outside the comics until now. Barring unlockable characters in video games, that is. There was an attempt to give him a film back in 2004, but it never really got off the ground. But, Shang-Chi was included in the deal that Marvel Studios made with Paramount pictures to reclaim the rights to use Marvel Characters; Captain America, Nick Fury, Doctor Strange, Hawkeye, Power Pack, Black Panther and Cloak and Dagger being the others.

 

Shang-Chi will appear in the film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on September 3. He’ll be portrayed by actor Simu Liu. In this version, Shang-Chi’s father Zhang Zu is combined with aspects of the Iron Man villain The Mandarin into a character named Wenwu whom uses the Mandarin name. They changed the titular and main weapons of the Mandarin the Ten Rings from ten finger rings into Iron Rings. These Rings are worn on the forearms for training purposes. Summaries indicate that Shang-Chi like in the comics is attempting to run from his father’s villainous legacy but will ultimately have to face off against him. Oh, and it’s implied that Wenwu has in the years since Iron Man 3 tracked down Trevor, the actor playing the Mandarin character for Aldritch Killian and has… shown his displeasure. I’ll be posting a summary sometime soon.

 

Shang-Chi is a character that, while I haven’t seen him in much, I enjoy for the simple fact that he’s a really cool concept. A man that has reached the pinnacle of Martial Arts and is so good that people with superpowers seek him out to improve their own fighting skills. He’s skilled, driven, and always ready to battle to protect others. I’m also rather excited for the film do in no small part to Simu Liu’s enthusiasm to play the character. The man has been flooding social media with tweets about Shang-Chi, how excited he is for playing the character, all the work he and the other actors have put into it, and how angry he was when a Marvel executive claimed that Shang-Chi was an experiment. I think this is going to be an amazing Marvel film based on Liu’s enthusiasm alone. I’m hopeful that this film will help boost Shang-Chi’s popularity and get him some more roles in other non-comic projects. Here’s hoping, anyway. Have a good night, everybody. 

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Twitter:@BasicsSuperhero

Villain Profile: Bloodsport

 Give James Gunn some kind of reward or award for this guy. 

Okay, so James Gunn might actually be a genius. Why? Bloodsport. Gunn took a fairly mediocre character and turned him someone that Idris Freaking Elba wanted to play. Yeah, as it turns out, despite the rather memorable name he’s actually on the same level of Polka-Dot Man or Weasel, where you actually find yourself asking “Is that character actually real?” But I might be getting ahead of myself, let’s get to it, shall we?

 

Robert DuBois’ villain career more or less began when he dodged the Vietnam Draft. DuBois fled to Canada after receiving his letter, as he had the admittedly justifiable fear of dying in combat. Unfortunately, his younger brother Michael (hey!) wanted to help him, and took DuBois’ papers and passed himself off as Robert. Unfortunately, this story of lying to the military didn’t have a Disney’s Mulan ending, with Michael victoriously defeating the enemy army, but he ended up losing both arms and legs in combat. Robert, upon hearing of his brother’s fate, had a mental breakdown. He was eventually tracked down by people working for Lex Luthor, who was looking for a patsy in his latest plan to kill Superman.

 

The man working as Luthor’s agent, going by Kimberley, twisted DuBois’ growing obsession and hatred for the Vietnam War around Superman. They gave DuBois a small arsenal of advanced weaponry, as well as a device that allows him to summon the weapons to him from a distant storage area. The most dangerous of these weapons, to Superman, being a gun that can shoot Kryptonite needles.

 

Minimalist costume, good, not great.

DuBois arrived in downtown Metropolis and started using his moniker of Bloodsport. Due either to his psychological break or in an attempt to gain sympathy, DuBois started claiming that he served with Michael in Vietnam and they bother had been injured there. Seeing Metropolis citizens “waste” the freedom Michael fought for and he claimed to have fought for, somehow made DuBois snap even worse and he started to indiscriminately kill every person he locked eyes on. The wanton slaughter obviously did get Superman’s attention and he flew in to try to stop this lunatic. Bloodsport summoned his needler and hit Sups with the Kryptonite needle. Superman was able to get away and get the needle removed. In round 2, one where even Luthor was cheering Sups on because the needless death was bad for business, Superman was able to damage DuBois teleportation device, stopping him from calling more weapons. Realizing the jig was about up, DuBois threatened to detonate his teleporters battery, which would end up destroying about ten square miles or so. Thankfully, while Sups was dealing with Bloodsport, his camera man and friend Jimmy Olsen was able to learn he was Robert DuBois and tracked down Michael. Michael is brought in and confronts the elder DuBois, causing him to collapse in grief and he was finally arrested.

 

DuBois had a few outings after this, but mostly remained in prison. He ended up feuding with another inmate on Stryker’s Island, a Nazi prick by the name of Alexander Trent. Trent also used the Bloodsport codename, having stolen it from DuBois while the later was behind bars. Racial and prison gang tensions began to swell in Strykers and the warden had the… idea to host a boxing match between the Bloodsports to see if they could alleviate some of the tension. He got Superman to ref, so he’s not a complete idiot. Unfortunately, a riot broke out as the match got started. DuBois was able to grab one of Trent’s weapons and blue a whole in the prison wall. He attempted to escape, but was shot and killed by guards. Trent also died a few days later when his Nazi brothers burned him to death in his cell for appearing weak in front of DuBois. Nazis gonna Nazi, I guess.

 

Robert DuBois aka Bloodsport seems to be an untested metahuman with an enhanced body. Think Captain America, Black Widow, or Batman, pique physical condition, above average reflexes and the ability to shoot on par with fellow assassin Deadshot. He is strong enough to take more-than weak blows from Superman. DuBois also has a teleportation device that allows him to summon weapons from an undisclosed location, provided to him by LexCorp.

 

Massive costume upgrade

Robert DuBois has had only a few appeareances outside the comics. While his name is pretty cool, and while he has critically injured Superman, the man himself is fairly bland. Yeah, he’s a crazy person that acts like he has PTSD, but that’s about it. There are other assassins that can do what he does but better. That said, let’s talk about the one appearance I’ve seen of him that actually made me love a version of this character.

 

Robert DuBois is played by Idris Elba in The Suicide Squad. In this version, he’s doing time in Belle Reve for having shot Superman and putting him in the ICU. Also, he didn’t avoid serving in Vietnam, and instead served in an unspecified tour of duty along with Rick Flag. And, while his brother isn’t mentioned, it is said that he was trained by his father to be the perfect soldier and an expert marksman. He is completely uninterested in joining Amanda Waller’s Suicide Squad, until Waller pushes the daughter button. See, DuBois in this version has a daughter named Tyla whom he has done his damnedest to stay away from. It’s heavily implied that this is perhaps to try to break the cycle of abuse and violence that DuBois himself suffered from his own father. He and Tyla have a very funny screaming match at each other before DuBois threatens to kill Waller for messing with her, before agreeing to join the Suicide Squad to keep Tyla out of prison. He’s sent to Corto Maltese to infiltrate Jotunheim research base and destroy project Starfish. He’s sent in along with Peacemaker, who has the same skills as him, King Shark, Ratcatcher 2, and Polka-Dot Man. Despite his best efforts, DuBois does end up bonding with his team, specifically Ratcatcher 2. They are eventually able to infiltrate Jotunheim but accidentally release the subject of project Starfish, Starro the Conqueror on Corto Maltese. Despite being told to fall back, DuBois says screw it and fights to destroy Starro. DuBois in this version doesn’t have the ability to summon weapons. Instead, he wears a suit of armor with pieces that he can detach and transform into weapons. His preference seems to be a pair of pistols he can pull of his pecs. Other pieces can be added to existing weapons, transforming his handgun sized blaster into a rifle and ultimately a cannon. He also has a sword, and a little sling shot thing for smaller work.

 

Yeah, so to finish this as I started, James Gunn is a genius. He took the most interesting aspects of a pretty one-note character, basically his name and his biggest claim to fame, upgraded him, his power, and gave him life via the acting chops of Idris Freaking ELBA to make a solid assassin to lead his version of the Suicide Squad. (Chef kiss) he’s perfect and I hope DC tries to reintroduce this version of DuBois. And that’s all I have to say about that. You are probably asking “Michael, did you really write this character bio just so you could gush about your man crush a little more?” To which I say, yes. This is my platform and if I want to make heart eyes at Idris Elba than I’m going to do it. No cishet man is THAT straight. Have a goodnight, everybody.

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Twitter:@BasicsSuperhero

Villain Profile: Starro the Conqueror

It's no Patrick Star. 

So, if you’ve seen The Suicide Squad, you know the McGuffin and final antagonist of the film is Starro the Conqueror. If you think that a giant monster mind controlling starfish is weird, you’re right, and the only rational I can give is that he was made in the 60s. Superman once destroyed a galaxy with a sneeze in that era, so Starro is hardly that strange by comparison. That said, I’ve seen a lot of world conquering aliens in my day, but few as bizarre as this monster. I should note, that while I’ve done my best to switch to gender neutral terminology for dealing with asexual creatures, I’ll be sticking to calling Starro it. What? It is Starro’s preferred pronoun.  Enough preamble, let’s get to it, shall we? 

 

The early life of the being dubbed Starro the Conqueror is shrouded in mystery. What is known is that it is a spacefaring alien that floats across the cosmos, it will subjugate whole planets as part of its lifecycle. The colossal main Starro releases millions of smaller clones of itself dubbed Spores that latch onto the faces of its victims, ala a Facehugger from Alien, and control its victim’s body. The main Starro feeds on their psychic essence, growing to colossal size as it feeds on Billions. After feasting, Starro would return to space and begin the whole process anew. This life cycle went on for countless eons, until a Starro set its eyes (collective singular eyes) on Earth.

 

Giant Alien Starfish is about
as bonkers as it gets.

As the great Asteroidea approached Earth, it used its immense psychic powers to contact and empower three lesser starfish to make way for it’s coming. The enhanced starfish wreaked havoc across the world, setting off nukes and absorbing their energy, kidnapping scientists to absorb their intelligence, and holding the town of Happy Harbor, Rhode Island, under their thrall. Aquaman caught wind of their plan as, you know, fish are kind of his thing, and he got the aide of the Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter to stop them and their master when it finally arrived. They coated the lesser starfish and Starro itself in quicklime, which was able to restrict Starro’s psychic powers and destroys its body. A piece of Starro survived, though, and that was enough for it to regenerate. Aquaman tracked down thee regenerated Starro, though, and was able to destroy it again before it could restart its plan.

 

Another piece of Starro must have survived, though, as the creature regenerated once again, though this time it was greatly diminished in size. It took over this little, inconsequential city of the DC Universe, New York City. This was the first time it utilized its spores to do so. The Justice League was called in, and were finally able to defeat Starro using extreme cold to defeat it. … Uh, much like with Megatron freezing in the arctic, I feel the need to point out the near absolute zero of space makes terrestrial temperatures damn near tropical. All I’m saying.

 

Starro has reared its ugly… cycloptic madreporite to battle the Justice League on a few more occasions, but is always put down by the Justice League. Its colossal size and ability to control millions, if not billions, makes it one of the most dangerous beings the Justice League has faced.  

 

I think it's him walking around that is the weirdest.

Starro the Conqueror is an alien Starfish with immense psychic power along with its colossal size. It generates countless cloned spores of itself that will latch onto the face or occasionally chest of its victims to control their minds. It could also impower lesser Starfish into near perfect clones of itself. They can also fly, fire off energy blasts, is telepathic, and can regenerate from only a few fragments of tissue. Its body is also incredibly sturdy, able to take blows from Superman without being destroyed. Its power seems to be based at least in part on its size. When Starro is reduced in size, it’s power is reduced proportionally. While small, it could probably control only a handful of people, it needs to be the size of a building to control large populations.

 

Starro has been used a few times outside of the comics. As I stated above, it is one of the most visually distinctive and powerful beings of the DC universe, so when it does show up it’s often very, very bad.

 

One of Starro’s earliest roles was as a cameo in Superman: The Animated Series. It’s only shown briefly at the end of the “The Main Man” two parter, one of several functionally extinct species kept in the menagerie of the Galactic Preserver. Terminology fact, a functionally extinct species is one that still has living members but reproduction isn’t possible, either from lack of reproductively viable members, or only a single specimen remains. Superman was the last Kryptonian, and Lobo, the last Czarnian, were of course perfect candidates. They defeated the Preserver and Superman took all of his collection to watch over on earth.

 

Yes, it's basically a brain
slug from Futurama.

The same Starro returns years later in Batman: Beyond in the two parter The Call. Future Batman Terry McGinnis got a recruitment call from Superman to join the current incarnation of the Justice League, in the hopes he can help Superman flush out a traitor within the current Justice League. The investigation doesn’t turn up much until the apparent death of one of his teammates, Warhawk. Investigation led to the traitor being Superman himself. It turns out, Starro, escaped its enclosure and took over Superman’s mind, wrapping around his chest and hiding beneath his clothes. Starro starts actively controlling the rest of the Justice League, but are ultimately defeated by Terry. The heroes return Starro to its homeworld and left it to live out its life. Terry is offered fulltime membership into the league, but he elects to follow his mentor with only parttime membership.

 

An unnamed Starro appeared in Young Justice. In the episode “Downtime” while the Young Justice team were taking a day off to recenter, a froze Starro is found by Atlantean scientists and put on display. Black Manta and his crew attempt to steal it, but are thwarted by Aqualad and his Atlantean allies. Manta, being a sore loser, detonated the Starro-cicle, destroying it. He is able to get a few pieces of it for his group, the Light. Over the course of the season, the Light gather other pieces of technology and mysticism to make its master stroke. In the season one episode Usual Suspect they use it, and in the finale Auld Acquaintance it’ explained, the Light used fragments of Starro and their other technology and magic to turn it into a biotech mind control. The Starro Chips, which go unnamed, blend into the skin and are able to control the human, alien, and even robotic members of the Justice League. The Team are able to free the Justice League, but not before the Light uses the mind-controlled League to wreak havoc on an alien world. While they were able to free the League, it is undeniable that the finale was the single greatest success of the Light that season and lead to greater successes down the line. I’ve read that more Starro appear in later seasons, but haven’t gotten to those episodes myself.

 

As I said at the start, Starro is the central McGuffin and final boss of The Suicide Squad. Through the course of the film we learn that a NASA team discovered Starro in the late 80s or early 90s. They brought the creature on board their ship and were the first beings to be enthralled by it. Starro was taken to Earth and sent to the Jotunheim facility in the island nation of Corto Maltese for research, headed by the Mad Thinker. After the military coup lead by the Corto Maltese military, Amanda Waller worried the new power might use the creature or release the US government’s involvement and sent two Task Force X aka Suicide Squad teams to the Island to destroy the evidence. The second team, lead by Bloodsport and consisting of Ratcatcher 2, King Shark, Peacemaker, Polka-Dot Man, and later, Rick Flag and Harley Quinn, go to Jotunheim. Starro escapes containment during their attempt at destroying the lab and the Squad is forced to stop the creature or risk it consuming Corto Maltese and perhaps the world. This version of the character is the only one, to my knowledge, where getting one of its spores on you is an automatic death sentence. All other versions can have the spores with no adverse side effects, if it happens soon enough.

 

Starro the Conqueror is one of the most unique villain concepts I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen alien conquerors like Thanos, The Kree and Skrull empires, the Shiar, Mongul, or Darkseid, beings hellbent on galactic conquest and the destruction of the human race. I’ve seen alien horrors like Doomsday, the Phoenix Force, or Galactus, horrors that are beyond humanity’s understanding. Few characters mix the concepts as well as Starro. It is an utterly alien creature, despite largely being based on a terrestrial creature. It being a colossal monster, capable of smashing most buildings just by walking into them, would be scary. A powerful psychic mind that can subjugate worlds is scary. Putting them together is down right terrifying. Yes, is a giant starfish also inherently a bit silly, but the combination of that silliness with the other qualities just makes it scarier to me. Doomsday is scary because of his muscles, bony plates, inability to die a natural death, but having those qualities make being scary easy. It’s much harder to make something goofy like a monster starfish scary. But Starro does. It was kind of an odd choice to be the villains for the Suicide Squad, but it worked out really well in my opinion. And that’s all I have to say about that. Have a goodnight everyone!

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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

Review: The Suicide Squad

 This Squad makes the old Squad look like garbage. Except Harley, she always looks fabulous.

I think we all remember the terrible Suicide Squad film from a 2016. Pacing was bad, the threat was bizarre, and the bonding was forced as hell. Sure, the casting was good, but that was about it. Now, when I heard that James Gunn was going to write and direct a sort-of sequel to that mess of a movie, I was apprehensive. But, having seen The Suicide Squad in theaters once and again on HBO Max to refresh my memory, I can say with confidence that those fears were proven false. But more on that later, let’s talk The Suicide Squad.

 

It's a big team, and over
half of them die!

We open with a long-haired man bouncing a ball in an open air but solitary cell. He bounces his racket ball around his whole cell and hits and kills a bird. This man, Savant, is brought out of his open-air time early by Amanda Waller, who offers him the usual deal, 10 years off his sentence if he performs a Suicide Mission for her. He gets the bomb implanted in his neck and his equipment back before meeting Col. Rick Flag and the rest of the Squad. Sorry, Task Force X. I guess the Suicide Squad is a demeaning name. So, The Suicide Squad this time around is made up of Flag, Savant, Captain Boomerang, Javelin, Blackguard, Mongal, TDK and Weasel. Harley joins late and has a kind of sweet moment with Boomerang as she comes in. Apparently, their still friends since last time, and Boomerang asks how she got arrested again. She jokes she had a road rage incident in a bank as she sits down. I bet Flag misses Katana right about now.  

 

While the copter takes off, we see the operators of Task Force X making bets on which of these guys are going to die. Waller communicates with Flag, telling him to get his team to the beach alive. Javelin asks TDK what his name means, Harley hits on Javelin, and we’re just shown a few minutes of bad guys on a suicide mission just before being ordered to drop. The team leaps into the water and thing are relatively fine… except for one incident. Weasel jumps into the water and immediately starts flaying and drowns. Turns out no one checked to see if he could swim… feels like a major oversite, but what are you going to do? Savant recovers his body and he drags it toward shore, confirming that Weasel is dead. The rest of the team makes it to shore, and Blackguard runs up and starts calling out to people, the Corto Maltese army, in the tree line. Yeah, he betrayed them.  The soldiers start firing, immediately killing Blackguard and starting a bloodbath.

 

Mercenary work never
looked so good.

The Suicide Squad kills a LOT of people, Harley killing a bunch with an RPG, Boomerang slicing heads and Flag dropping a few with his rifle. They order TDK, The Detachable Kid, to use his power… which is to detach and move his arms telepathically. Huh… When Harley asks the obvious “What the F,” Flag kind of shrugs and says that he didn’t pick the team. Mongal attacks a helicopter, bringing it down and killing a bunch of soldiers, but also killing herself and Captain Boomerang. Hooroo, Jai Courtney. We also see Javelin and TDK gunned down, and Savant, who was watching from the water, freaks out and tries to swim away. He makes it a few yards before Waller detonates his bomb and kills him.

 

It’s then revealed that what we just saw was the death of team 1, team 2 has made it to the island. We then get the opening credits, played over the analysts paying out their bets and showing all of Team 1’s bodies. We also see the same species of bird that Savant killed earlier eat some of him. Gross.

 

We jump back 3 days and are reintroduced to the leader of Team 2, Robert DuBois aka Bloodsport. He’s on cleaning duty, which includes pulling out Savant’s long hair from the drains. He’s an expert solider that is actually in prison for shooting Superman with a Kryptonite bullet and putting him in the ICU. He’s not interested in joining the Suicide Squad, but Waller seems oddly smug. She tells him he has a visitor. The visitor is his daughter. You expect a scene like Deadshot had with his daughter, a tender parent-child moment… but it’s pretty clear these two kind-of hate each other. He yells at her for getting caught stealing a stupid TV watch, and Tyla is basically mad that he’s mad at her getting caught, not at her shoplifting. After they both scream “F you” at each other, DuBois deflates, points out he told her to stay away from him, as he had a shit dad and knew he’d be a shit dad and that she’s better off without him. She finally admits that she’s only visiting because her court date is coming up and Waller told her that DuBois might be able to help.

 

Harley I think is officially
the most recurring DCEU
character.

DuBois returns to yell at Waller for trying to use his 14-year-old daughter to get him to join the Taskforce. Waller then points out that she’s 16, and implies that she will manipulate Tyla’s trial to get her sent to Belle Reve. The prison for supervillains has the highest mortality rate in the country, and is… you know, full of supervillains. DuBois grabs a sharp pen and holds it to Waller’s throat. Waller is able to talk him down and convince him to be apart of her mission.

 

She introduces Bloodsport to his team. We have Christopher Smith aka Peacemaker, there’s a pretty good joke where Waller reads off the exact same history/profile of Peacemaker as she did for Bloodsport; Nanaue, King Shark, a humanoid shark that is believed to be the descendent of a Shark God; Cleo Cazo aka Ratcatcher 2, who uses a device to communicate and control rats, and her personal pet rat Sebastian; and Abner Krill, the Polka-Dot man, he throws polka dots but it’s much scarier than it sounds.

 

We learn about Corto Maltese, an island nation that just recently had a violent coup lead by Generals Silvio Luna and Mateo Suarez. The mission is not, in fact, to kill Luna, but to break into a research base called Jotunheim and destroy a Project Starfish. That name is… troubling, as I know of only one Starfish in the DCEU and it is not something to be trifled with. Waller tells them that all they know about Project Starfish is extraterrestrial in nature. They are going to use the Gaius Graves aka the Mad Thinker, Project Starfish’s head researcher to break in. After some comments from Ratcatcher 2, King Shark and Peacemaker, Bloodsport rather pessimistically declares they’re all going to die, and Polka-Dot Man says that he hopes so.

 

We jump back to Team 2 making it to shore. They hear explosions in the distance, but Waller tells them to ignore it. The crew walk and argue. They notice that Polka-Dot Man is literally covered in giant glowing hives, he claims it’s just a rash. And explosion occurs and we cut back to Team 1. Harley makes it to a nearly dead Javelin, who gives her his Javelin, telling her to carry it for… but he dies before he can say “me,” and Harley is either too freaked out or crazy to know what he meant. She gets surrounded by guards and arrested. We see Flag escape but then also get surrounded.

 

King Shark has got a hankering
for people.

Team 2 makes camp for the night. Bloodsport wakes up to see an even more glowing hive covered Polka-Dot Man get up, go into the trees and vomit up Polka-Dots before returning, back to normal. Sebastian then gets his attention and he shoots King Shark immediately when he sees the creature about to eat Ratcatcher 2 like a hoagie. Ratcatcher 2 is understanding until Sebastian tells him what happened, and summons a bunch of rats to threaten him. Another fight ensues, where it’s revealed that Bloodsport has a rat phobia and that Peacemaker sleeps in his tighty-whiteys. I did not need to see a nearly nude John Cena, all I’m saying. Sebastian offers Bloodsport a leaf to show him he means no harm, but Bloodsport is still not into it. They have to figure out how to work with King Shark without fear of eating them. Ratcatcher offers to be his friend if he agrees not to eat any of them. King Shark, who has never had a friend, agrees.

 

Back at base, the Analysts get Flag’s signal. Waller tells them they have a new mission objective, to recover Flag. We also learn that Bloodsport and Flag know each other, and that Flag was the one that recommended him for the program. They’re told to terminated his captors with extreme prejudice. Peacemaker is all for the bloodbath. When Ratcatcher 2 asks why someone named Peacemaker is so into violence, he explains that he “loves peace. And {He} doesn’t care how many men, women and children {he} has to kill” to get it. King Shark starts the attack, eating a man in about five bites. Bloodsport and Peacemaker go in, and have a killing fight. They find the most creative and bizarre ways to kill people. The final shots being Bloodsport shooting a table leg, dropping a fan into a tub to electrocute a man and Peacemaker shooting a man with a compression bullet, a bullet that explodes after about 10 seconds. Bloodsport says no one like a show off and Peacemaker counters with “unless what they’re showing off is dope as f” to which Bloodsport has to agree. Polka-Dot Man unleashes a bunch of polka-dots from his gauntlets, destroying a watchtower as the polka-dots seem to disintegrate things on contact. They make it to the main tent… only to discover this is the rebel base and that Flag is chatting quite good naturedly with the camp leader, Sol Soria. Whoops. The villains try to pretend like they didn’t see anyone, except Polka-Dot Man who reveals that he, and I quote, “Turned them into {his} mother in {his} head and killed them.” Soria is obviously pissed but Flag is able to get her to agree to help them, as their missions align.

 

It's real weird when a pro
wrestler finds their ideal
part, but I'm here for it.

We then cut to the Mad Thinker being led into the palace in the Corto Maltese capital. They’re watching a film of some kind, with the Thinker explaining that it is the video footage of the capture of Project Starfish, the main focus of his research for the last 30 years. The space Starfish is shown to release smaller versions of itself that facegrab onto hosts, and add them to the collective, causing the main body to grow larger and more powerful. He leads them into Jotunheim, and we see the silhouette of a colossal Starfish in a container. Apparently, the former ruling family fed the thing with political dissidents and the like. Mateo wants to unleash it on the Americans, but Luna wants to use it as a Nuclear threat, a ticket to the big leagues. Mad Thinker points out he’s the only one who can control it, now, and he’s welcomed to the team. Luna is then told “she” has been captured.

 

Harley has been held in a tiger trap for the last few hours, but then is freed and put into a red dress before being taken to the capital. Luna greets her and tells her that he’s been admiring her from a far for a long time. They have a great day together, eating dinner, being shown his exotic birds and so on. At the end of the day, Luna admits he wants to marry her in order to legitimize his rule. She was picked because she is the perfect symbol of anti-America fervor, but he actually likes her after spending time with her. The two then have rather aggressive sex in his livingroom to celebrate, destroying several vases and paintings in their passion. After, Luna reveals his plan to use Project Starfish just as the old regime did to control the populace, to kill his enemies and political rivals. Harley, upon hearing that he’ll send kids to feed the beast, shoots Luna, killing him. She apologizes, explaining that after Joker she promised herself to watch out for any “red flags” in a potential relationship and murder the guy if she sees any. Obviously, killing kids is a Crimson Red Flag. She goes on to explain to a dying Luna that she had to kill him as men as bad as the ones she’s into don’t just leave. She claims that he was pretty, but he’s prettier now that all those rotten thoughts are out of his head. She’s arrested. Mateo is named President, and has Luna’s birds burned as a sign that he isn’t a romantic. Kay? He plans to release the beast on Russia, USA and China. He tells his men to get torture Harley for information on how many American agents are in the country.

 

Back with the Squad, Ratcatcher and Polka-Dot Man are flagging as they really aren’t the cross-country type. Polka-Dot Man’s face is breaking out again, and he finally explains why this keeps happening. His mother was a STAR Labs scientist that infected him with a virus to turn him into a superhero. If he doesn’t release the polka-dots once a day, he breaks out and eventually dies. When asked where his mother is, Polka-Dot Man says “Everywhere” and we’re shown what he sees, his mother cosplaying as every character around him. Damn. The group gets going again.

 

We cut over to a man driving a bus up to a military checkpoint. He stalls for time with his paperwork just long enough for the Squad to show up and kill them all. The guy, Milton, has supplies and disguises for them. King Shark thinks he can disguise himself to go with them, thinking that a fake mustache would be enough to hide the fact he’s a massive Shark. Flag mentions to Soria that if things do go bad at Jotunheim, that would leave the palace vulnerable. He’s a good dude.

 

As the Squad enters the capital, their communications start cutting out. Waller thinks the military put jammers up. Their communications might be spotty, but she can still activate the bombs and that’s nothing to what she’ll do to Tyla. The analysts around Waller are clearly uncomfortable with the threat to children, but keep doing their jobs.

 

I wonder how many 
Sebastian's there have been...

On the bus, Ratcatcher 2 asks Bloodsport about his rat thing, and he asks her why she likes rats. She explains first, that she and her Dad lived on the streets of Portugal due to his heroin addiction. He used his tech to steal trinkets for them and keep them warm at night. After he OD, she took his tech and went to America, where she was arrested for armed bank robbery. Rats count as weapons, I guess. Bloodsport then explains his deal, that his dad would punish him for failure in a variety of ways, one off which was locking him in a crate with hungry rats. Damn. Ratcatcher 2 and Bloodsport both promise to get the other out of this alive. They arrive at the Gentleman’s club Thinker prefers.

 

The Squad get comfortable and wait for him to show up. They bond while drinking and waiting for Thinker to show up. There’s a very weird scene with Polka-Dot Man on the dancefloor and we see it as he does, and he’s surrounded by his mother. Man has got some serious issues. King Shark, meanwhile is sitting in the truck and just looking kinda bored. Eventually, the Mad Thinker arrives. He’s made by Flag and the rest. Milton, who is outside, sees the military drive up and start looking for Americans. He tries to go in to warn the Squad but he’s kept out. Bloodsport pulls a gun on Mad Thinker and tells him they’re taking a trip to Jotunheim. They almost make it to the exit before the army arrives. Bloodsport hands thinker off to Polka-Dot Man and Ratcatcher 2, and tells them to meet him at his tracers’ coordinates. Then, he, Flag and Peacemaker turn themselves in to distract them.

 

Ratcatcher 2, Polka-Dot Man and Thinker make it out the back. Thinker points out that she’s obvious distressed, and she asks if he wants a dozen hungry rodents up his ass. “My answer might not be what you expect.” God, I love Peter Capaldi.

 

The captured trio is taken in armored Humvees. One of the guards mentions that Harley Quinn is still alive, much to Flag’s interest. One guard gives Bloodsport a cigarette. Bloodsport mentions the “death’s touch” the art of killing a man with a single blow. The guard doesn’t think it can be done with certainty, but then Flag, Bloodsport and Peacemaker demonstrate it on all of them. They then kill the guards up front, causing several traffic accidents, and end up crashing into the side of the road. Once out, they plan to go to Jotunheim, but Flag insists they go after Harley.

 

Don't bring up his mom

Harley is being tortured by Mateo and his guards. Unfortunately for them, Harley is kind of into torture so they’re getting anywhere with her. As she’s getting stun gunned, the rest of Task Force X arrives to try to break her out. Harley passes out. Mateo leaves her with his torturer, telling him that they’ll see if she talks when her fingers get cut off. Once alone, Harley wakes up and strangles the torturer to death with her legs. She then grabs the key with her toes and frees herself. She then grabs a gun and a pair of boots and sets about slaughtering soldiers like she’s on a shooting range. She’s a scary court jester. She grabs Javelin’s Javelin and escapes, just in time to see the Squad prepping to break in and free her. She’s really super happy to have people that are willing to come free her and offers to go back in so they can save her.

 

They interrogate Mad Thinker, demanding he take them to Jotunheim. There’s a pretty funny bit where Harley threatens to kill him if he has a personalized license plate, mismatch blacks or coughs without covering his mouth. Flag says those last three aren’t true, but not to take that as an excuse to cough without covering his mouth. Solid life rule in this Covid World we’re still living in despite what others might tell you. Thinker points out that cameras are everywhere, but they’re going to disable the security cameras with Ratcatcher 2’s rats. Flag and Ratcatcher 2 will go with Thinker to the main lab, and the rest are going to plant bombs all through the upper floors to blow the place to kingdom come.

 

The Squad drives up Jotunheim as it starts to rain. There’s this kind of weird shot where they walk through the rain to the front gate. They kill the guards and get inside. They make Mad Thinker put the emergency code in and put the lab into lockdown. They split up to plant their bombs and raid the lab. The internal security is roused to their presence, and the guards on the outside start ramming the gate. As the others set up their bombs, Peacemaker follows Flag and Ratcatcher 2, leaving King Shark by himself.

 

Mateo is warned about the Jotunheim attack and leaves with the majority of his guards, leaving the palace open for Sol Soria to raid the palace.

Rick's had it up to here with
this shit.

 

In the bowls of Jotunheim, they meet project Starfish, the creature using its controlled humans to beg for release. It’s at the point that Mad Thinker introduces Starro the Conqueror. He explains that everyone here are the corpses of political rivals, journalists and the like that the starfish control. He also reveals that this was all a black ops American project. Americans found Starro, and knew the potential of weaponizing it. They made a deal with the Corto Maltese government to do their experiment in secret. Peacemaker joins them. Flag grabs the hard drive to the computer. He’s tired of hiding and covering up the government’s dirty little secrets and is going to reveal it to the world. Peacemaker pulls a gun on him and tells him to drop the disk. He was charged to make sure the records don’t leave the lab. The building starts shaking, as the bombs went off early. Peacemaker doesn’t want to shoot him, but will to protect peace. Rubble falls, separating Ratcatcher 2 and Mad Thinker from the two soldiers. And freeing Starro. Thinker is grabbed, pulled into the cell and ripped to pieces.

 

Ratcatcher 2 and Sebastian make a hasty retreat. Peacemaker and Flag get up and start fighting over the disk. It’s a pretty cool fight, shown in the beginning reflected on Peacemaker’s helmet. Flag almost gets the upper hand on Peacemaker, but Peacemaker grabs some shrapnel and stabs Flag through the heart, killing him. He grunts “Peacemaker. What a joke,” as he dies. Better hope Enchantress doesn’t have her powers anymore, buddy. Peacemaker gets up to see Ratcatcher 2 get the disk and run away. Peacemaker follows her and knocks her to the ground, gun to her face. She points out that he can just destroy the disk, why does he need to kill her? He is going to kill her because he’s thorough.

 

We jump back 8 minutes ago. Bloodsport’s team sees the military arrive in force and hurry to set their bombs. King Shark, left on his own, finds an aquarium filled with bizarre Jellyfish like creature that he has fun with while the others work. Back with the others, Milton is killed by guards and Polka-Dot Man kills them in retaliation. There’s a pretty good bit where Bloodsport doesn’t remember Milton was with them, and Harley didn’t even notice him. They kill a few more guards, but Polka-Dot Man’s destructive polka-dots set off the bombs, destroying the upper floors, including the aquarium. King Shark is attacked by his new dumb friends who prove to be piranha like monsters. Harley swims over to rip some of them off as the other bombs go off, tilting the building. King Shark drops to the ground, but he’s one sturdy beast, surviving the fall and several gunshots. Harley pulls Bloodsport back in from his perch. King Shark gets up and bites the head off the commander of the troops. Jotunheim’s upper half snaps off completely and starts dropping. Bloodsport, Harley and Polka-Dot Man run up and escape the collapsing part, but Bloodsport keeps dropping, landing at where Peacemaker has Ratcatcher 2 at gun point. They shoot at each other, with Bloodsport’s smaller bullet breaking through Peacemaker’s and hitting him in the neck. Ratcatcher 2 catches Bloodsport on what happened. He grabs the disk as the surviving team members regroup.

 

He's got Starro on the brain.

Starro breaks through the lower floors and escapes. Starro releases it’s spores, grabbing onto and controlling the army around it. The Squad realize the Starro spores are unable to grab faces through a protective covering, so put on masks to block them. Well, Ratcatcher, Harley and Polka-Dot Man do. Bloodsport shoots them down, and the Spores can’t get through King Shark’s skin. Sol and her crew break into the palace and slaughter the generals of Corto Maltese as this is happening.

 

The controlled soldiers get back up. Through its puppet’s Starro claims this city is its and marches toward town. Back at Task Force X headquarters, the feed is back up and the lead analyst announces they have a freaking Kaiju up in here. Waller tries to tell the crew to pull out. Being bad guys, most of them almost go along with it, but then they say screw it and go back to stop Starro. Waller threatens to activate the bombs in their necks, but one of her analysts knocks her out with her golf club, allowing the Suicide Squad to go after it. So… it’s a super solider with transforming weapons, a woman who controls rats, a man shark, a crazed jester with a Javelin and a man who releases destructive Polka-Dots vs. a colossal mind controlling Alien starfish. Well… crap. Guess you’ll need to watch the movie to see how they pull this one out of the crapper.

 

Okay, that was a very fun movie. Margot Robbie continues to steal every scene she is in as Harley Quinn. She’s unstable and delightful. I liked seeing the other returning Suicide Squad alumni Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang and Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag. Sure, Courtney wasn’t in it for very long, but I liked seeing him and Harley still being friends after the last movie. And Flag was great as the legit soldier of the crew. I’m actually sorry this is his last outing. Sylvester Stallone was great as King Shark’s VA. He’s dumb and violent but everything he says is perfect. David Dastmalchian is amazing as Polka-Dot Man. He plays a very disturbed individual that I think genuinely wants to do good. He just got really messed up by his mum. And, fun fact, he says that he deeply identified with Polka-Dot Man as the character suffers from a skin condition, something Dastmalchian also has. He’s got vitiligo and was bullied and called Polka-Dots as a kid. Huh. John Cena was fun as Peacemaker, I read he was told to play the character like a Douchey dude-bro Captain America and that is the best description I’ve heard of him. And obviously Idris Elba was amazing in every scene. The scene between him and his daughter, played by Storm Reid was fantastic. They have great chemistry despite their characters clearly having a metric ton of issues. She hates him for being a shit parent, her hates her to keep her away from him so he doesn’t mess her up like his dad did to him. I loved his transforming weapon arsenal. For those who’ve yet to see it, his armor has specific pieces that he can detach from it and they transform into various weapons, guns, swords, or additional attachments to make the weapons bigger. Oh, and Viola Davis is fan-freaking-tastic as Amanda Waller. Seriously, she deserves an Oscar for this role. I also liked Gunn’s unique directing and his means of transitioning between scenes. He uses a lot of scenery shaped into words for the scene changes. Like Operation: Jotunheim forming in smoke after the car crash, only for Jotunheim to be blown away to form Harley when they decide to free her.

 

The bad is almost nonexistent. There are a handful of jokes that don’t land, but they are counter balanced by the sheer number that do. Starro is kind of underdeveloped as a monster, but that’s partially due to it not even making a full appearance until the finale. And after Luna’s death, I don’t know, I just don’t think Mateo was as good of a villain without him. I think I’d have preferred Harley screwing up her assassination attempt the first time, but then getting to kill him during the finale. And… yeah, that’s all the bad I can really think of.

 

And this isn’t so much a bad as I personally wish they had let Boomerang survive the initial attack as well. What? I wanted to see more of him and Harley being bros, and I would have liked to see how he and Flag interact.

 

I’m giving this one an A. This movie was superior to its predecessor in almost every way imaginable. I think the Squad was more likeable over all, and yet they never let you forget that most of them were still pretty bad people. Their mission to covertly shut down a black ops project that gets out of hand feels way more believable than stopping Enchantress and her brother in the last one. Why? Because Starro was contained and hidden right up to the end, where as Enchantress’ death magic thing was bright enough it 100% would have gotten at least the Flash or Batman’s attention long before the Squad got to the damn city. The body count was also significantly higher, making this an actual Suicide Squad, which I think averages like five deaths per mission minimum as compared to Suicide Squad which I think only had the death of El Diablo, which was also a heroic sacrifice, oh, and Slipknot, who was only there to show off the bombs going off. The effects were great, the final battle was amazing, and it actually made me hopeful to see another Suicide Squad movie and potentially more James Gunn DC Movies. They teased a Bloodsport vs. Superman fight, and I want to see that damned Prequel. Thanks. And that’s all I really have to say about that. Have a good night everyone!

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